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Wah-wah. Sad trombone. “Those aren’t pillows!” Or whatever signal you want for a reversal from good to bad. That was what I heard when it was announced that Victor Martinez had a torn meniscus, which reminds me of a conversation I had when calculators were first introduced in 1961 and I had to abandon my loyalty to my other counting device, screaming, “I’m torn, abacus!” I got sad when Martinez was hurt, not because I wanted to draft him and now he had an injury. I was saddened because now I figured my ranking of him in the 110’s wouldn’t be as low as other ‘perts. You know, they’d hear this news and lower him. Much to my surprise, I overestimated the rest of the ‘pert world. They still have him ranked 75 overall on average. *scratches head* You know, head scratching really doesn’t help one understand anything, which sounds like a line from C.J. Wilson’s latest dandruff commercial. CBS has him ranked 15th overall. I’m not even joking. I wish I were. “Your final wish is granted.” No, Genie in a Bottle, it’s a figure of speech! Okay, it looks like CBS has changed his ranking slightly, that was before the knee surgery. Stupid, wish-taking Genie! Martinez is still ranked way too high, and it has nothing to do with the surgery. So, what makes Victor Martinez overrated for 2015 fantasy baseball?

Here, friend, are some catchers that I will be targeting at my 2015 fantasy drafts after the top options are gone. I’m not going to get into the strategy of punting catchers. Been there, half-drunkenly wrote that years ago. Click on the player’s name where applicable to read more and see their 2015 projections. This is a (legal-in-most-countries) supplement to the top 20 catchers of 2015 fantasy baseball. Now, guys and four girl readers, I am not saying avoid catchers like Matt Wieters if they fall, but to get on this list, you need to be drafted later than 200 overall. And, to preemptively answer at least seven comments, yes, I will go around the entire infield, outfield and pitchers to target very late. Anyway, here’s some catchers to target for 2015 fantasy baseball:

I’m not a total ass. Partial? Sure! I have no problem with that. With that said (here comes the ass part!), I have no sympathy for Josh Hamilton. Everywhere you look you hear about how heartbreaking, sad, *searches Thesaurus.com for sympathetic word* it is that happened to Hamilton. Light a candle for the literal manifestation of the prayers that you send out to him. Put on If You’re Gone by Matchbox Twenty and picture Rob Thomas singing directly to Josh. Go to your local package store and protest until they close on Sundays. Do what you want, but you know what’s heartbreaking to me? The fact that spring training starts and the baseball news that people are discussing is Hamilton running down the wrong foul lines. Also, I feel like most of the sad emoticons that go out for him are generated because he believes in God, family and is white, especially the last one. If he were non-white, there would be no sympathy from anyone. A Josh Hamiltonguez would be released by his club and the public’s silence would be deafening. Arizona would even consider building a fence to keep him out. A Josh Hamiltonjackson would be vilified and there would be a criminal case opened with only the Reverend Al Sharpton standing by his side. Torii Hunter would need to say something, because no one else is. My advice for Hamilton is get some help, but stay away from Dr. Drew, because one out of three celebrities never make it out of Celeb Rehab. Maybe at some point Hamilton can get past the crack and back to the crack of the bat, but I don’t have much hope for him this year and have adjusted my top 100 outfielders. Anyway, here’s what else is going in spring training for fantasy baseball:

This draft was by Yours Trudy. Never understood that, Yours Trudy. Who is this Trudy that everyone is talking about? No, no, I’m not changing the subject before even embarking on the subject simply because I’m not happy with my team. How dare you j’accuse Yours Trudy of that! So, yesterday, on the Not-the-Ides of February, Grey Albright, the Fantasy Master Lothario (don’t abbreviate it!) took part in a 12-team NL-Only draft that was commissioned by Scott White of CBS Fantasy. You know, CBS, they brought you such head-scratchers as Viva Laughlin and Travis d’Arnaud as a top 60 overall pick. In fact, I razzed one of the CBS ‘perts about his d’Arnaud love in the beginning of the draft, then the room nominated d’Arnaud and the CBS ‘pert didn’t draft him. I think I might’ve shamed too hard. *shrugs* C’est la. This league is deep so hold onto ye old hat. (If you want a shallower league, play against me and 1,000 of your closest buddies in the Razzball Commenter Leagues.) Anyway, here’s my 12-team NL-Only team and some thoughts:

Players are going to play, play, play, play, play, play. The haters are going to hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. And Grey’s going to hate Matt Holliday. Shake it off! I’ve been waiting for years to write this post. Just biding my time, rubbing my fingers together like an animated villain. If you look at me real fast, twirling my mustache, plotting Holliday’s schmohawk post, you might see the human incarnate of Snidely Whiplash. Each year, I’d look at Holliday and see a guy that consistently put up fantasy stats with dashing good looks. A regular Dudley Do-Right. They even both wear red and ride a horse. Holliday’s horse is, of course, his chauffeur, Carlos Lee. Dudley Do-Right is a Canadian Mountie, and Holliday is from Oklahoma, which is a known hatchery for Mounties. Regularly, you hear about Oklahomans being kidnapped into the Mountie army. Like how the North Koreans kidnap the Japanese. (I saw a documentary on this.) The similarities are endless! But, now, Holliday, you’re 35 years old, you can’t move as fast, and you’re mine! Also, out of 35 ‘perts polled (say that fast 117 times!), I had Holliday ranked lower than everyone, so obviously I needed to write this post. It was my duty! (Hehe, I said duty.) So, what makes Matt Holliday overrated for 2015 fantasy baseball?

Potatoes to chips, I’m gonna keep this Head-to-Head fantasy baseball draft strategy so succinct that it could be written on the back of a CVS receipt and still have room for a grocery list for a family of five. Assuming the family of five has shopped in the previous two months. If said family was in Breckenridge for a skication, and are just getting home before Rascal, Tommy and Clarafeen have to go back to school, then their shopping list might be too long to fit. Now if they’re just getting back from Breckenridge and are bringing food with them in coolers that they accumulated over the skication, then there might still be enough room. More or less contingent on accumulated food and their level of hunger. Fangraphs has a formula to figure this out. It converts a CSV table into a CVS receipt. Quite revolutionary. Head-to-Head, or H2H, doesn’t change a lot to our 2015 fantasy baseball rankings. There are 300 billion suns in the Milky Way galaxy. There are 100s of billions of galaxies in the universe. There are at least 256,000 planets exactly like Earth. Yet, there’s only one Mike Trout. (Though Trike Mout on Planet Spoonerism is pretty good too. Not a first rounder though.) H2H doesn’t change that. The strategy for playing in the middle of the season in H2H leagues changes. You aren’t hoping Billy Butler hits 20 homers by October, but whether or not he’ll hit a homer on Sunday or if you should sit him to try and win steals. It’s all about the matchups, y’all! So you want to build a team that can match up well with any other team. (FYI, I’ve gone over this stuff before, but some of you might need a pine tree refresher hung from your rear view.) Anyway, here’s my head-to-head draft strategy:

Here’s one of the oddest schmohawks I’ve ever seen. If you ask everyone who carries a fantasy baseball ‘pert laminated diploma from the Fantasy Baseball College of Charleston in their fanny pack, they will tell you Adam Wainwright is angling for a disappointment this year. I’ve seen it written more times than I count. Of course, I can only count to seven, but, as Fonzie’s horse says, naaaaaaaay, my brain is still baffled by this peculiarity that I am witnessing. This peculiarity that just makes no sense. This peculiarity that is as hard to look at as an un-Photoshopped Beyonce. Along with these DANGER AHEAD articles on Wainwright, he’s also being ranked high. As the Spanish would say, question mark, what, question mark. Come here, sit on my lap and ask, “Why, Unkie Grey, does everyone warn against Wainwright then rank him high anyway?” Figuratively! Get off my lap! My best guess why we’re in some kind of Twilight Zone episode where Wainwright has become Wainwrong yet is still being ranked high while Burgess Meredith tries to locate another pair of eyeglasses is because everyone knows Wainwright. That’s right, he’s being ranked high because everyone knows him. It’s why Verlander was still ranked high last year. If you have three million people at your site that know Wainwright, is it easier to explain to three million people why Wainwright is headed for a bad year or is it easier to just rank him high and move on? Yes, I’m saying ESPN, Yahoo, CBS and Fox (does Fox have fantasy?) are just taking the easy way out and saying Wainwright will be good even though they know he won’t. Does that surprise you? If it does, I suggest you don’t open the gag can of peanuts in Spencer’s Gifts. You’ll really have a heart attack then. So, what makes Adam Wainwright overrated for 2015 fantasy baseball?

Hehe, I said tool. Our Fantasy Baseball War Room is one part draft tool, one part fantasy team evaluator, one part fantasy junkie’s s’s and g’s tool, one part holy, two parts smokes, three parts… How many parts is that so far? Cause it’s only really seven parts total. I think there’s one part kill-your-day-with-this-war-room-thing-a-maboob in there too. I don’t know, guys and four girls, I think it’s pretty cool and I only get excited about things once every three full moons or once every time I see the t-shirt with three moons and a wolf. For reals, it might be the best thing since sliced bread. Now sliced bread that is toasted and buttered is another story entirely. This shizz is so insane, I just had an aneurysm. Are you happy now?!

In past years, I’ve said the following analogy. There’s years of looking up to your father, whether you agree all the time or not. Then, one day, he takes a poop on your couch. You take him to the hospital; he’s in need of some sort of psychology examination. If the tests come back conclusive that he pooped the couch simply out of laziness, then that’s ESPN. If tests come back that he’s gone crazy, then that’s Yahoo. That’s inaccurate this year. It still holds true for ESPN, but Yahoo seems like it’s taking steps to correct past mistakes. They’ve lost The Noise from the composite rankings, and he’s always said baseball wasn’t his thing. (What is his thing…well…) Funston, Behrens, Del Don and Pianowski do a conscientious job with their rankings. No, I don’t agree with all of them, I’ll get to that. But they do take the time to actually rank, which I’m 99.9% sure can’t be said of ESPN. Yahoo could easily phone-in their rankings like ESPN, but they don’t. That is, indeed, a point for them. Yahoo still seems to be in love the stolen base and guys that can be labeled as ‘hot, unproven bats.’ They don’t rank nearly deep enough and they have some of the funkiest position eligibility decisions, but these all seem to be coming from places of conscious decisions and not, “Tristan, could you rank for everyone today? I just saw Stephen A. Smith in the elevator and he asked me to Au Bon Pain for lunch. Thanks.” That’s a voicemail message that Cockcroft gets every day. Anyway, here’s where my 2015 fantasy baseball rankings differ from the 2015 Yahoo fantasy baseball rankings:

Some guys are obvious they’re going to be overrated, other guys don’t reveal themselves until I start seeing where others are ranking them. Freddie Freeman fell into the latter category. I wasn’t expecting to see people rank him that much higher than I had him. I mean, I knew people love to love players that are good in real life. It’s the Poseyitis Syndrome again. The general population knows Freeman is a good real baseball player, so if some ‘perts rank him too low or say anything negative on him, then people get upset. As a general rule of thumb, people don’t want to upset other people. I grew up Jersey, so if you’re not upsetting someone else, you’re doing something wrong. You need thick skin to get by. Preferably thick, bronzed skin. When I saw some people ranking Freeman in the top 20 overall and even in the top 15 in some instances, my toes began to tingle and I knew there might be something schmohawky here. Of course, I hadn’t moved off the couch in three months, so I might’ve just lost circulation to my lower extremities. “Get off the couch, Fantasy Master Lothario!” That’s me yelling at myself. So, what makes Freddie Freeman overrated for 2015 fantasy baseball?